Vedere la Scienza Festival

The Living Forest

Original Title: El bosque animado

Director: Angel de la Cruz, Manolo Gomez

Music: Arturo B. Kress

Production: Dygra Films S. L., Megatrix Sau

Spain

83 min.

2001

An animated film from Galicia, winner of the Goya award in 2001 as best animated film and of the first prize at the Chicago Film Festival. Completely shot in 3D (the first in Europe) with deliberately naive drawings, it is taken from El bosque animado (1943) by W. Fernàndez Flores. In the enchanted woods of Cecebere, trees and animals live a quiet and happy life, playing and singing all the time except when there is some human being around. They know that man, being so self-centred, is the most dangerous of their enemies. Being ignored is their only way to be safe. But a merciless mole taxidermist and his terrible wife, who wants a new mole coat, challenge peace in the woods by starting a relentless hunt to the soft animals with a fur “the colour of winter clouds”. Mole Linda is also caught and her beloved Furi would face lots of perils to rescue her. He would rely on the help of firefly Luci, his inseparable friend, that communicates with gestures and luminous signs, the two nice flies Ho-Ho and Hu-Hu, loyal pussycat Morrigna, good mouse Piorno, and the wise trees with their friendly faces carved in Oak, Helm, Pine, and Eucalyptus wood. The strong environmental message is also intelligible for young kids, and quotations from other films abound: among them, the final fly attack to the villains’ house, which recalls the helicopters of Apocalypse Now.